Beacher offers powerful message on album

Beach singer/songwriter Kristin Lindell has just released a CD that combines very listenable music with a very powerful and uplifting message. Overflowing is the title of this latest recording by Lindell who, before deciding to become a musician, worked as an eco-activist and social justice educator. It starts out light and breezy, with a fun, rollicking feeling, but gradually shifts into a much more sombre, serious and contemplative tone.

Lindell has surrounded herself with some excellent players, all under the production wing of Great Lakes Swimmers’ Bret Higgins, for whom Lindell has no end of praise. Higgins has infused her songs with a feeling and an atmosphere that nicely complements her uplifting lyrics. The ten songs that make up Overflowing are brimming with passion, love, and hope…good things to listen to in these days of economic and political gloom and doom.

Lift Up Your Heart starts the CD off in almost a reggae spirit, while Lindell channels her best Patsy Cline for Hear Me Callin’, a great country-swing number with B3 organ pads in the background and strong slide guitar riffs. Switching to a more bluegrass sound, Linden Tree has Lindell sounding like Alison Kraus with her gently rolling rhythms and soft vocals. She keeps up that country feeling with Keep On, greatly aided by Miranda Mulholland’s fiddle playing and Joel Schwartz’s resonator guitar solo. Before leaving the country mood, Lindell presents her own original take on one of my favourite old spirituals Shall We Gather at the River.

Overflowing starts into its more contemplative mood with the song Our Love Shines, a strong, slow ballad about the power of love (“Our love shines through the darkness/Our love melts through the cold/Our love shines”). It continues with A Thousand Voices, with lyrics that take love into a more spiritual realm (“We lay in the song of a thousand voices…/Our love builds a chord on the lute of God, singing/This is how our song begins”), ending up with the title song – Overflowing –a song of hope for the future (“One day my ship will come sailing in/Overflowing, overflowing”). In between we catch a glimpse of the sexier side of Lindell when she sings You Know That I Want You (“I am the ocean and you are my shore/I want to caress you and rush through your door”).

Overflowing was launched Nov. 1 at C’est What? downtown. There was a great crowd on hand to hear Lindell and her band (Schwartz, Bret Higgins, bass; Robbie Grunwald, piano; Joshua Van Tessel, drums) and Kristin reported that the evening’s launch was “a big hit!”

She said she hopes to take the band on the road soon in support of the CD. You can find out more about Kristin Lindell – and order Overflowing – by visiting kristinlindell.com.